Getting Started at Eagle View

We believe all great things start small and slowly and the Eagle View project is no different.  After closing the transaction for the 3-acre lot last week, we begin by removing dilapidated cattle fence around two sides of the property.  There are four strands of barbed wire and four foot high cattle fencing that appeared to be fastened to the fence posts at one time or another.  We kept our fence tool from Cloverland Ranch and are finally using it again after carrying it around the country for the last 7 years.

We start with the northern boundary that runs along Chapel Road.  We will make our initial driveway onto Chapel Road.  We are hoping to meet with the excavator this week and discuss plans for building said initial driveway ASAP.

Same boundary below, but looking in the opposite direction, this time looking toward the west.  As you can kind of see the fence is falling down more than standing up.  We think it will look a little better with this old fence system gone.  We may one day put up a new and more attractive fence, but that is not a priority now.  The initial intent is to make way for construction equipment onto the lot and building of the initial driveway.

We started the pile of fence posts here, near the road for quick loading and removal.  The cattle fence and barbed wire we are folding up as best as possible and collecting that in the same location.  The piles are small, but it is a start.

Fence posts and wire fence.

Barbed wire.  Rusty barbed wire.  I am more fond of briers it turns out.

A large tangle of wire near the telephone pole.  We think that is where an old gate was located.  Not too far from where the new driveway will be located.  The grade stake in the foreground is one edge of the proposed driveway.

Closer in on the major tangle of rusty barbed wire, cattle fencing all well stapled to the dying fence posts.  Clearing that out was like wading into a brier patch on steroids!

Gari is getting things under control.  Looking good Gari, the piles are growing.  Cattle fence pile left, barbed wire pile right.

Progress at the end of the day.

It's a start.  We think it looks better.  Tomorrow we will try to reach the corner.

Eagle View is Reality

We celebrate this Memorial Day weekend, having completed the transaction for Eagle View yesterday!  Next week we start the septic system if things go according to plan...

Eagle View

After losing our 20-acre dream spot to an unexpected landfill history we thought that was it for this project.  We sat in a trance of disbelief for a few days after terminating that contract, then we decided to write a few more letters to vacant land owners; we had nothing to lose.  We honestly did not think anything was going to come of it this time, but were we surprised!  We found a second land owner that was willing to sell at a reasonable price.  As fate has it, we are back under contract, this time for a 3-acre parcel of land.  This new lot is not far away from the 20-acre Irwin property, but this one is in Swan Valley, Idaho and still has the same great valley views of Baldy & Sheep Mountains, plus the other mountains surrounding the valley.  Hopefully this contract will not go down in flames like the previous.... time will tell.

The shot below shows the Head Surveyor, (Gari) with her clipboard directing the measurements we made one Saturday not so long ago.  We were on the lot trying to determine if the improvements of a shop, house, well, septic system and electric transformer would all fit onto the lot.  The land looks flat in the pictures, but there is a couple foot drop off in the corner of the lot where Romeo is parked.  We think that area would not be suitable for any of our improvements, so the 3-acres is limited to a little more than 2-acres.

Here we come out of Phase IV of this Little Spoken Project, which was restarting the search for "our spot".  We are now calling this Phase V - Eagle View.  We chose that name simply because there are Bald Eagles in the area; they like to fish the Snake River, which is just in front of those mountains seen below.  On this day we witnessed two Red Tail Hawks dogging this Bald Eagle.  The hawks were dive bombing the eagle and the eagle was swooping this way and that as hard as it could.  The huge three birds flew close over our heads and the air noise through their feathers was amazing!  Such large birds, and in flying combat mode, what a sight and sound that was.  We were able to snap one picture that captured the eagle in frame before they were gone from our sight just as quickly as they had appeared.

Below the Head Surveyor's field dog (Steve), runs the measuring wheel to the next point to be marked.  We were out on the lot with our 100 ft tape measure, when our adjoining neighbors Rick & Patty saw us wrestling the tape and brought over their Surveyor's Wheel.  We had seen but never before used a measuring wheel.  After a short learning curve our operation sped right up.  We estimate that wheel saved us a couple hours in making our measurements, definitely the way to go.  Thank you Rick & Patty!

Steve points out the foot counter display on the wheel.  Steve likes that wheel!  You can see the now obsolete 100 ft tape laying idle on the ground...

Nothing but the best in this surveying outfit!  We picked up a bundle of sticks that were trimmed at our RV park before we left and carried them to the lot to be used as surveying markers.  You can see the other surveying tools employed at Steve's feet; a rubber mallet and a spare lynch pin that was used as a punch to open up holes in the ground for the twig markers.  We later obtained some actual grade stakes and upgraded the layout.  The good news is that everything fit on the high ground with a little room to spare.

The shot below is taken from the southwest lot corner looking toward the east.  You can just see Gari and Romeo in the distance.

A little closer in below you can see the four grade staked corners of the future pole barn.  Gari is setting up a shot at about where the future house will sit.

Standing at the same southwest lot corner, now turning the camera 90 degrees to the north in the view below.  Our initial driveway will lay just to the frame right of the telephone pole that is nearest to the fence line.

This shot below is taken from the northwest lot corner looking to the east.  The initial gravel driveway will be located very near to that leaning fence post.... which all of those fence posts will have to go.  They have seen their day and have earned their retirement.

Below is a grade stake installed marking one side of the future 14 ft wide gravel driveway.  You can see the "Idaho Sand" at the edge of the lot... that is the round river rocks.  This valley was carved by the mighty Snake River and the river rocks abound here.  They continue to "grow" as they are lifted up by the freeze and thaw cycles, heaving more of them to the surface every season.

 Zooming in on the view above, you can see a better image of Red Ridge situated south of the Snake River down towards the Palisades Reservoir.  The reservoir is 16,000 acres with 70 miles of shore line right behind the Palisades Dam, which is seen below as a white line at ground level frame left of Red Ridge (pointy peak).  You can just make out the Salt River Mountain Range east of the reservoir with Bradly and Elk Mountains and Deadhorse Peak to name a few high spots.  There is still a lot of snow up there, that will soon be down here as melt off.  The dam is about 5 miles from Eagle View.

The Little Spoken Project... Phase IV

We are going into our eighth year living the full-time RV lifestyle as of the first week in April.  What an adventure it has been, and we are hopeful that it keeps on giving happy times and fond memories.  One of the facets of this lifestyle that we have thought about and discussed many times over the past few years, is establishing some location as a home base.  That is, a place that we can call our own and go to if circumstances require.  The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly provided challenges to all of us and that includes folks living the full-time RV style, and has made us think again about the necessity of a home base.  With many campgrounds, state, local and Federal parks closing and increasing travel restrictions the RV lifestyle becomes more difficult if not more impractical.  Don't get us wrong, we will still be RVing.  Following the sun across the seasons is one of the best features that we absolutely love and plan to continue for as long as we are able!

Given the amount of time and energy that we have put into looking at various properties, and the small amount we have described those efforts in this blog, we decided to call this the Little Spoken Project.  This Project has evolved in Phases over time it seems when we think about it.  We recently sold our New Mexico building lot that we had purchased several years before we retired.  In fact we bought that lot before we knew that we would be getting into serious RV living.   We will call this Phase I of this Little Spoken Project.  It turned out that the subdivision restrictions there in New Mexico precluded the use of an RV at that lot.  That certainly wasn't going to work for us, so selling the New Mexico lot was our decision.  We thought we could find a more suitable spot where using our RV would not be a problem to anyone.

...we were in southern Arizona last fall when the New Mexico lot sold; in Sun City near Phoenix actually.  However, this post will begin a couple of months later in Yuma, Arizona, where we were guests of Alan & Janice from Arkansas... not far from where Grandma & Grandpa Currier retired on their own small family farm in the Ozarks.  Below, Alan and Gari ride on the tandem bicycle by the lot where we parked, Alan & Janice live in the white swirl trailer and we live in the tan swirl color rig.

Below is a shot of our trailer on Alan & Janice's lot in Yuma.  Gari is busy washing the trailer from top down.  She sure does run a spic and span ship!

However, our time on the lot ended a littler earlier than anticipated this time. The picture below shows our vacated spot.  Alan is below, in frame left preparing to move over onto the spot we just vacated.  The reason for this was the construction project that Alan & Janice started planning this winter was getting ready to commence.  Alan did a great job acting as his own general contractor and really improved their deal on a steel building RV port compared to some of the early offers that they received.  They will build a steel RV Port on the spot that Alan's trailer is parked below.  Hence the need to move his rig to the other side of his lot to make way for construction.

Things worked out very well for us despite all the construction and Covid-19 changes.  Because of the Covid-19 outbreak, many of the wintertime visitors had already departed for destinations north by mid-March.  Many Canadians had to leave Yuma, as they were informed by their government that their heath care would not be covered should they contract the Covid-19 virus while in the US.  Probably half of the Yuma wintertime population is Canadian.  Mid-March is a little early to return to the great white north, but leave they did in great numbers.  This opened up a lot that was less than 1000 ft from where we were initially parked at Alan's place, so this is a record short RV move for us.  Alan & Janice only moved 50 ft across their lot, so they still hold the world record in our small RV group for shortest RV moves!  Below is our rig, kayaks loaded up for our own imminent trip north... to Idaho.  It turns out the lot we moved onto is owned by a lovely couple from Idaho, and they allowed us to park there for almost two weeks at no charge!  That motivated us to do a little weed control on their lot while we were there.  Do you see a weed in that shot below?  We hope not.

Below you can see the first phase of Alan's RV Port Project, the pouring of the runner footings.  The concrete crews did not speak much English, but they were friendly, skilled, hard working and produced a fine foundation at a very fair price.

The finished foundation product is seen below.  Good job guys!  Unfortunately for the RV Port Project, the steel manufacturer in Gallup, NM had just closed down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so erection of the RV Port will have to wait until further notice...

It was on the 29th of March that we started our trip north to Idaho.  Why the hurry?  This is where the Little Spoken Project comes into play.... along with the Covid-19 pandemic.  Each day we watched  Covid-19 developments, not knowing what to expect from one day to the next.  When we started seeing Stay at Home Orders and other travel restrictions develop, we decided if we wanted to get north that we had better get going sooner rather than later.  Our planned route took us through a small part of California where the lock downs had already begun by that time.  Why is getting to Idaho so important?  Long story short, we had entered into a land purchase contract for a 20 acre property in Idaho.  Re-summarizing, Phase I of the Little Spoken Project was the New Mexico lot, Phase II was the 5 acre lot in Idaho we had looked at last September; we actually previously mentioned that lot in a blog post.  We had made a verbal offer which was eventually accepted, but we never entered into a signed contract for that 5 acres.  Therefore, this current land contract for the 20 acres is Phase III of the Little Spoken Project.  We have not said too much about this property search and development effort, but it has been going on quietly in the background for couple years at least.  However, now it is coming out, and we are headed for Idaho!  On our way north we passed by a wind farm set against the mountains somewhere in central Nevada.

We made a quick rest stop at Nevada's Extraterrestrial Highway at the intersection of State Routes 375 and 318.  Gari got a hero shot between the trunks of two enormous Cottonwood trees.  No aliens were detected.

A little back road scenery heading north on Route 318.

A good time, back in the day at The Blackjack Inn, somewhere in central Nevada.

Getting close to the southern Idaho state border now.

We always have to share a picture of our favorite river, The Snake.  This shot is going over the State Route 93 bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho.  Evel Knievel attempted his famous rocket bike jump just one mile that a way down the river.. just around that bend in the river.

We arrived at Buck's RV Park a little more than three weeks ahead of our initial plans; thanks to Covid-19.  As a result, we got to see the white stuff you see around the campsites in the park shot below.  Don't get us wrong, we think the snow is real pretty and fun, but living in a trailer gets noticeably more difficult as the temperatures drop below freezing.  The large cliff in the background is known as The Bench around here.  That little tidbit will be important later.

A view from the back of our RV Park lot looking south toward The Snake River, which is across the road, and the Palisades Reservoir is just upstream a couple of miles.  As fate would have it, this site has become our RV home from now through September 2020.  This will be one of the longest periods that we have sat in one place.  We elected to cancel two other reservations that we had at other parks in Idaho for two reasons; one the Covid-19 situation made it seem like sitting still was a better strategy, and two, we thought we could get some property improvements going on the land we were going to close on at the end of April, which is Phase III.

You know the first thing we had to do was walk across the road and make sure the Snake River was still there.  There it is, and Gari says it is c-c-c-cold!

Arriving in Idaho so early gave us the treat of observing about 5 or maybe it was 73 days of snow from the inside of a trailer; I'm not sure how many days it was, but it felt like 73 days that first week or so.

 After the snow and wind stopped the surroundings are really very beautiful.
The current land contract for a 20 acre parcel below we call Phase III.  We had signed the contract for the 20 acre parcel sight unseen a couple of months ago in February.  We kept a clause in the contract that permitted us to terminate the contract for any reason after a viewing of the land no later than April 27th.  The shot below is looking north along the road frontage from the south property corner of the 20 acre parcel.  There is Stetson out in the pasture on that parcel.

The shot below looks east down the southern property line, Mount Baldy (left) and Sheep Mountain (right) in the background.

Gari walks out on the property and takes in the magnificent views.  We walked around the 20 acre parcel for over two hours that day.  We found two of the property corner markers at the rear of the parcel about 1300 feet from the road.  Twenty acres is a really large area of land when you walk over every bit of it.  It was cold and windy that day and eventually it started to rain, and that pretty much ended our first viewing of the parcel.  As we pulled away in Romeo the Ram all cold and tired and a little wet, we saw a man walking up the road toward us.  We stopped the truck and rolled our window down to introduce ourselves.  It turned out to be a small farm neighbor Cliff, a couple of parcels to the south.  We chatted for a short while when he asked if we knew that the property was once involved in a dump and landfill operation 50 or 60 years ago.  What?!?!?  We drove back to the trailer that late afternoon bewildered and wondering what just happened?!

Over the next several days we began calling and asking everyone we saw if they knew anything about "the landfill".  To our great disappointment, several of the older local long-term residents did know about it.  We were never able to get anything official or documented, but we believe a dump operation was conducted there during the time the Palisades Dam was under construction in the 1950s and the refuse was ultimately buried in a pit by the County and closed before 1963.  We did see several commercial sized scraps of metal, car frames and tires coming up through the soil near and on the parcel.  We ultimately decided that it was too much of a risk, since we could never specifically determine the exact extent or comprehensive contents of the landfill pit, and we sadly terminated the contract representing the end of Phase III of the Little Spoken Project. :-(

Now we sit in Irwin thinking, 'what are we now going to do for the next 6 months'?  We decided that we are down, but we are not out!  Thus starts Phase IV of the Little Spoken Project to find a spot of land where we can return in our trailer during the appropriate seasons in the future.  Below is a shot of a 10 acre parcel a mile or so away that we looked at last week.  It is not on the market for sale, but we have approached the owners to see if they may be interested in selling.  You can see The Bench starts to rise in front of Mt Baldy.  As you continue south down the valley, the valley narrows and The Bench eventually completely obscures any view of the magnificent mountains.  This is about as far east as we want to look for property in this valley.

Below is a shot of another 1 acre parcel that we rode by.  As you can see it is farther down into the valley and The Bench almost completely occludes Mt Baldy (left) and Sheep Mt (right) as you can just see their tops.

While we were running around from April 1-6 looking at the 20-acre property and trying to figure things out, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission suspended the sale of non-resident annual fishing licenses due to Covid-19.  NOooooo!  So for now our plans for the summer will include hiking, biking, paddling our kayaks and finding that elusive Phase IV property that we can call home.... but no fishing until this pandemic is over and America reopens.  Not to worry, this just makes us look elsewhere for fun, and we are now devising a plan for a kayak trip down our favorite river, The Snake!  We think we can pull off a 14 mile paddle.  There will certainly be a blog post if we are successful in that.

After the presses stopped on this post, there has been another late breaking development in the now Spoken Project, but that update will have to wait for a subsequent blog post. It could be Phase V...